9 Things Preppers Can Take Away From Camping That’ll Help Them Improve Their Skillset

camping tent

When many of us are preparing for a SHTF situation, we try to think of every scenario possible. This means thinking of things like what to do when you run out of food, what kind of supplies you need in your bug out gear and learning what you can live without. Most of these things can be learned from a camping trip or two. So if you feel like you need to create the worst case scenario just go camping and remember what valuable lessons you learned.

Lessons You Learn From Camping That Can Make You A Better Prepper Include:

1 — Forgot to Bring Something

Ever camped and forgot something important at home? Not having these tiny replacement items handy can suddenly make many aspects of camping much more difficult.

In a long term emergency situation not having important items can be dangerous. A challenging camping experience can help you re-evaluate your emergency supplies.

2 – Doing Without Short Term Vs. Doing Without Long Term

Camping teaches us how power dependent we all are for everything from telling time to food preservation to communicating to lighting. Re-evaluate your needs for fuel and electricity in an emergency.

3 – Water Is More Important Than You Think

Camping is a great lesson in how much water we all use on a daily basis. From drinking, washing hands, cooking, cleaning dishes, brushing teeth, etc. It adds up and you use water faster than you think. For short term emergencies, stored water can get you by. Camping vividly illustrates how you simply cannot store enough water for a long term emergency.

4 – The Differences Between Needs & Wants

Camping teaches you the difference between wants and needs. It also helps you realize the things that aren’t essential but would be really nice to have.

When making a list of preparedness supplies it helps to divide the list into needs, wants, and nice to haves, and then prioritize accordingly.

5 – Sanitation Becomes a Challenge Quickly

It’s one thing to camp in a managed campground with adequate and well maintained sanitation facilities.

Sanitation and hygiene has to be addressed from the very beginning. It can’t wait to be addressed after it becomes an issue. Proper sanitation requires advance planning and adequate supplies.

6 – Food & Water Requirements Are Different When You Are Active

Some camping trips are a leisurely affair. Then there are the 20-mile hikes. One thing becomes clear when contrasting both situations; you need more food and lots more water on the very active trips vs. the more relaxing trips.

Most emergency situations are likely to be more active then sedentary, plan your need for consumable supplies accordingly.

7 – Supplies Can Be Heavy

Nothing teaches you this like a backpacking trip. Now you might think this is an argument for packing light, but it’s actually the opposite. Unless you have planned exceptionally well, you’re likely to find that on a backpacking trip you wish you had more food, more water, and a warmer sleeping bag.

8 – The Need to Live Off the Land

Sometimes camping is an end in itself. Sometimes it’s a means to a larger end… like fishing or hunting. If you’ve eaten fresh fish you caught that day you know you have the ability to really extend your food supplies. In an extended emergency having the skills and supplies to gather, hunt, fish, or garden may make all the difference.

Does your emergency supply include long shelf life garden seeds, fishing supplies, extra ammo, edible flora reference?

9 – Convenience Matters

Making a camp dinner from scratch can be fun, delicious, and rewarding, but sometimes on a very active camping or backpacking trip, what you really want is good tasting meal that is fast and easy to prepare.

In an emergency situation the last thing you want to for a meal is to start with a grain grinder.

If your remember all the lessons you have learned during a rough camping trip, it will help you gather the supplies you need  and also consider things you have yet to prepare for. These lessons can turn a great prepper into a wonderful prepper!

To read more about how camping skills can help you become an even better prepper, visit Backdoor Survival.


5 Comments

  1. Casey A Holland said:

    Camping, in my opinion, is one of the best ways to practice and develop skills. However, alot of prepper and survival wannabes have done alot of damage and ended up in bad situations in the mountains where I live. So before you try what you see on TV, have proper equipment and just practice smaller skills until you are highly skilled. And don’t practice techniques that are otherwise illegal or destructive unless it is truly necessary.

  2. Billy Twowolf Hall said:

    Im bugging in .
    Its 12 mikes from my home to my cabin.
    Very little traffic rural road.
    Camping is a super bad idea
    Yoyr gonna be evading the oppressors.and the opportunist.
    Plus any one you spoke along the way.
    My place has been in the works 3 years and were just now getting the garden right
    Theres a big difference between prepping and just surviving

  3. James Eves III said:

    When the SHTF …. My wife has 3 cats ,,, I already know what order I want to eat them. Just wondering does anyone have any recipes … I was thinking either bar-b-que sauce or maybe jerky

  4. Rick Bloom said:

    “Camping” is a temporary measure one way or the other. A nylon backpacking tent isn’t adequate permanent shelter pretty much anywhere in the country. Or N. America. If you figure on providing for yourself foodwise but don’t have the means to grow a large portion of it, plan on starving because that’s what you’re going to do. There simply aren’t enough wild resources in most parts of the country to sustain yourself now, with no competition for the resources. When the army of people that think they’re going to run to the woods and live off the fat of the land show up, well…..

    That said, camping and self reliance are great skills to have and should be persued. Learning to identify and prepare wild edible and medicinal plants could save your life. The herd of people heading for the woods will mostly be concentrating on the meat. Most of them are ignorant of what plants are edible, the qualities of useful trees, how to purify water, how to clean their clothes and themselves, life without toilet paper…..

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